Position Paper – Part Four

Name: Christine Kim

Instructions: Please use this form as an organizer for writing your portion of your group position paper. You will be writing the conclusion to the paper. You should clearly and thoroughly summarize your groups problem and your solution. Be persuasive and convincing in your conclusion why you believe that you have identified the best solution to your problem. Be sure to follow the MLA citation format that you used when completing your JRP.
You will also complete the Annotated Bibliography – gather all sources from your issue group members and compile into one annotated bibliography

VII. Conclusion: Be sure to restate the problem and why you think your solution is the best possible course of action.

As we said earlier, Americans are, on the whole, are an unhealthy nation, and many of these health problems are related to consumption of fatty, greasy foods. What helps the issue of obesity is clearly because not enough tax is enforced onto fast food. Fifty million people in the US are dependent on fast food and it is said that the national average of obese children in the United States is 17%. That is a lot of people eating a poor diet. Our solution with tax revenue on fast food would be the best solution for this issue of obesity. Not only would it discourage consumers from eating fast food that are not good for them but this can also help cover health care, medical search and other items for all Americans; especially for the obese people who needs the help of Medicare and Medicaid. It would be also beneficial since obese people already has cost Medicare an extra $1,486 each, Medicaid an extra $864 each and private insurers an extra $423 each. With our solution, it can also help consumers to think about what they would rather want to eat instead of looking at prices. Usually, healthier foods like vegetables and fruits are more expensive than unhealthier foods like the dollar menu at Mc Donalds. If you think about it, the solution of reducing smoking was because the government has enforced a higher tax to cigarettes. It would not hurt at all to higher taxes onto fast food to reduce obesity in America. I conclude that our solution to increasing tax onto fast food that is enough to balance out with healthier food will reduce obesity and help the issue with the government paying extra money for Medicare and Medicaid.





VIII. Annotated Bibliography: Collect all the sources from your fellow issue group members and compile one ANNOTATED Bibliography.


Ballor, Jordan. "The Flawed Fast Food Tax." www.acton.org. N.p., 2010. Web. 16 Feb. 2011. < flawed-fast-food-tax>. In this article, it was about how Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick wanted to pass an extra tax on quickservice food. It also shared about how taxes enforced onto fast food should depend on how many the calories are. The article gave out some useful statistics and gave input from the Burger King CEO Greg Brenneman.


Colville, Liz. "Tackling Fast Food Habits—With a Tax?"
www.findingdulcinea.com. N.p., 2011. Web. 16 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/health/2009/august/
Tackling-Fast-Food-Habits--With-a-Tax.html>.
Schmidt, Martine B. "Supertax Me." The New York Times 19 Oct. 2006: A27.
ProQuest Platinum. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <http://search.proquest.com/
docview/433415141?accountid=3660>. In this article, it talks about the Kaiser Family Foundation survey that supported for a consumer tax on junk foods like cookies, hamburgers, and candy. The article also explains how enforcing tax to junk food would reduce obesity and reduce many deaths from it. The author also talks about the Senate Finance Committee and explains some of their research and statistics that they have found out.


Duncan, Emma, and Others. "Spoilt for Choice: A Survey of Food." The Economist
13 Dec. 2003: 1+. Sirs Researcher . Web. 15 Feb. 2011.
<http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/
hst-article-display?id=SIL0364-0-2411&artno=0000184480&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=fa
t%20tax&title=Spoilt%20for%20Choice%3A%20A%20Survey%20of%20Food&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N
&lnk=N&ic=N>. In this article, it shared about how Americans obesity rate has increased throughout the past years and why. It had a lot of support information and statistics from what researchers had found out. Not only does this article provide extra information with the statistics but it also shares about some of the fast food industries like McDonalds, KFC, and Burger King. The author was not biased about sin taxing on fast food but it explained good reasons why sin taxing on fast food would be okay.


Eldridge, David. "States eye 'sin' taxation as salvation for budgets."
Washington Post [New York] 17 Jan. 2011: A.1. ProQuest Platinum. Web. 15
Feb. 2011. This article is about state lawmakers thinking about raising the "sin tax" on soda and fast food. It tries to convince the readers that a small percentage added onto the tax would be beneficial. It also talks about the correlation between obesity and soda and how we need to change this problem. The goals of this source were to help the readers to think about why enforcing taxes onto fast foods would be a possible solution to these issues.

Healy, Melissa. "Tough love for fat people: Tax their food to pay for
healthcare." Los Angeles Times. N.p., 2011. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.
<
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/07/
tough-love-for-fatties-tax-their-food-pay-for-healthcare.html>. This article is about how much the obesity rate is going up in a short time. It also has information on how the fast food tax would help our society get more money for the health care system.


Schmidt, Martine B. "Supertax Me." The New York Times 19 Oct. 2006: A27.
ProQuest Platinum. Web. 15 Feb. 2011. <http://search.proquest.com/
docview/433415141?accountid=3660>. In this article, it had a lot of good statistics and facts about families and purchasing a lot of fast food. It's main points in this article is about how fast food causes obesity because it is cheaper. It also shared about how obesity caused the nation extra money for Medicare and Medicaid. The author shared how America is increasing its percentage of obesity rates from fast foods and enforcing sin tax onto fast food would be the best policy.


Shepard, Paul. "Why a Fast Food Tax Can Help Us Pay for Health Care." Black
Voices. N.p., 18 June 2009. Web. 17 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.bvblackspin.com/2009/06/18/
lets-tax-fast-food-for-health-care-savings-part-ii/>.This article says that a small tax on fast food tax would be a good thing to do. It also compares alcohol and tobacco users to people who eat fast food regularly.



Vogel, Ed. "Legislator urges junk food tax." Las Vegas Review Journal 12 Feb.
2011, sec. B.1: 1. ProQuest Platinum. Web. 15 Feb. 2011.
Ballor, Jordan. "The Flawed Fast Food Tax." www.acton.org. N.p., 2010. Web. 16
Feb. 2011. <http://www.acton.org/pub/commentary/2005/05/11/
flawed-fast-food-tax>. The main arguments in all these article were about the disadvantages between fast food and consumers and how enforcing higher taxes would be the best solution. Moreover, the legislature speaks about how sin taxing on fast food would be useful to our country. It also had facts and statistics which helped readers like me to get an idea of how bad our country was with the issue of obesity and money.

Interview Citations


Duda, Justyna. Person interviewed by Joanna Duda. February 21, 2011.

Peng, Eric. Person interviewed by Christine Kim. February 21, 2011.

Yu, Jinu. Person interviewed by Christine Kim. February 21, 2011.

Zbaraza, Luke. Person interviewed by Joanna Duda. February 21, 2011.